Cats and Scratching

As a cat owner, you know that scratching is a completely normal and healthy behavior for cats, but you also know that it can get frustrating when your favorite feline starts to ruin your furniture. Cats scratch for a variety of reasons including to mark their territory, to help shed claw sheaths, and even to find an anchor for a long stretch.

But there are ways to reduce furniture damage and here are some solutions.

Perform regular nail trims. Since one of the reasons your cat wants to scratch is to look after his nails, regular manicures will help reduce the need to scratch.

Make surfaces less appealing. If your cat has found a favorite spot that you don’t approve of, chances are he’ll return to it over and over until you make that spot less appealing. Try covering the area with tape to make it slippery. You can also put tape sticky side out. Our online shop offers a few commercial solutions including scratch prevention spray and repellant tape.

Make sure your cat has lots of approved places to scratch. Scratch posts of many variations may be purchased at most pet stores. They’re often make of wood and carpet along with a pole with sisal that offers the scratchy surface cats are looking for. Newer versions of scratching items are made of cardboard and are very lightweight. Check out our full selection here. Make sure to put the post in a place where you cat is comfortable and to entice him to use it, put a little catnip on the surface.

Here are a few other tips to consider when choosing a scratching post:

• Is the post rigid? It shouldn’t move and needs to offer resistance to work properly
• Is it tall enough? Your cat should be able to stretch at full length. Be careful, though. If it’s too tall it could fall over.
• It’s good to offer both vertical and horizontal scratching places

Finally, if you’re the DIY  type, you could even build your own cat scratch post. Here’s a video showing a simple variation.